Dusty: ‬I’m smoking three packs of cigarettes at a time right now and I have a question to ask you.

Eric: Hahaha! If I can understand it through all the hacking and coughing, then yes.

Dusty: What? Fuck you man, smoking is rad. Anyway, ‬I always run old wrestling angles by Becky to see what she thinks of them from a logical perspective or whatever‬. I was telling her about the whole NWO and I think we talked about this before, but she thought it was stupid for them to think they could take over the entire company, and that they should have just been like, we’re talking all of your guys belts, since we’re better wrestlers than you.

Eric: ‬Hmmm‬…

‪Dusty: ‬So the NWO should have been five guys, one for each title, and all WWF guys except for one big turn‬.

Eric: ‬Interesting.

Eric: I totally see that working. “We’re taking over” and “You want a war?” works in this scenario.

Eric: And the most important thing to a wrestling company should be its titles.

Dusty: ‬Yes. Titles = money and women.

Dusty: And prestige.

Eric: ‬Now, it was not unreasonable for them to tear down some WCW signs and spray-paint “NWO” on everything, because even a five-man gang would do things like that.

Dusty: ‬Absolutely would‬.

Eric: ‬But to aspire to have “NWO Nitro” when, under your headlining 3-4 guys, you have jobbers like Vincent and Stevie Ray?‬ That’s a stretch.

Eric: Five wrestlers, five titles, and a little muscle for reinforcement. Scott Norton as a heavy… Buff Bagwell as a mouthy hanger-on… Konnan as a (expletive deleted)… Hogan, Hall, Nash, X-Pac and Giant.

Dusty: Yeah sure‬.

Eric: ‬That’s a hell of a gang‬

Dusty: ‬One of Beck’s arguments was that, if they’re “taking over” to the scope they originally meant ‬the core of the feud should have been Ted Turner vs Ted DiBiase‬. If we are to believe that DiBiase is a billionaire and was trying to wrest actual control of the company from Turner, then having Bischoff at the epicenter of the feud was just self indulgence.

Dusty: Try to control the titles and prove that “you” (essentially Team WWF) are superior wrestlers‬.

Dusty: So then Team WCW would be led by what, Sting, Luger and the Steiners or whatever, and you’d still have the Horsemen, and everyone would be about equal in group size and importance, and you’d be fighting over belts

Dusty: ‬You could still have an NWO B-team‬, you could still have Jimmy Hart’s First Family, you could have a few lesser Team WCW offspring.

‪Eric: ‬It’s all so true‬ .

Eric: Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli “invading” ROH for the sake of CZW and trying to “steal” their tag team belts… now that was good stuff.

Dusty: ‬Did you just nail it?‬ Because I have an uncomfortable feeling that you did.

Eric: ‬Goose pimples.‬

Dusty: ‬So then, another byproduct of this type of ‬booking‬ would be that they would be forced to keep the NWO A-team concise. And that means no pre-Russo swervy nonsense like having Hennig immediately turn on the Horsemen.

Dusty: ‬There were two swervy pieces of nonsense in particular that drove me absolutely nuts‬. One was Arn Anderson handing his spot over and Hennig immediately turning on them, and the other was Bagwell coming back from serious injury and immediately turning heel again.

‪Eric: ‬I loved the Bagwell thing… I hated the Hennig thing‬.

Dusty: ‬Well, it was total garbage, is why‬. “Hmm, I get to trade my opportunity to take Arn Anderson’s spot in the Horsemen for a chance to be Random Dude Number 75 for the NWO?! I’LL TAKE IT!!!”

‪Eric: ‬No shit. It makes no sense on another level, because Hennig is totally Horsemen material.

Dusty: ‬He deserved to be in the Horsemen‬. He was horsemen level talent, he was friends with Flair, he had an on air association with Flair before. It would have been perfect.

Eric: It would have been WHAT??!!

Dusty: ‬They’re saying it, they’re saying it‬.

Eric: ‬There’s only one‬…

Dusty: ‬You’re looking at ‘im!‬

Eric: ‬See, it’s not even so much that the Horsemen had a “gang” mentality‬. They were friends looking out for each other, and they were better than everyone else. That fits Hennig’s MO, not to be one in a humongous gang of thugs.

‪Dusty: ‬Yes, exactly‬. Classy gents.

Eric: ‬Whereas Bagwell is a punk pussy bitch who needs to be part of a strength-in-numbers situation‬.